Arroz Blanco con Hoja Santa

This is a Veracruz dish, with a foot also in Oaxaca and Tabasco. Anywhere hoja santa grows wild against a wall and a cook reaches up to tear off a leaf for the pot of rice on the stove. You do not find this rice in the north. You do not find it in Jalisco. You find it where the leaf grows, and the leaf grows in the hot, humid south.

Hoja santa is not a garnish. The leaf is the seasoning, and the technique is older than any recipe book: lay it whole on top of the rice while it steams, let the trapped vapor pull the oils out of the leaf and drop them into the grains. Anise, black pepper, a little sassafras, a little mint. All from one leaf. There is no substitute. If you cannot find hoja santa fresh, this is not the day to make this rice. Cook arroz blanco plain and wait until the leaf shows up at the mercado.

The rice itself is the simplest arroz blanco: rinsed, fried in lard with onion and garlic, steamed in hot broth. The discipline is in the small things. Rinsing properly. Toasting until the grains smell like popcorn. Heating the liquid before it hits the pan. Not lifting the lid. Resting off the heat. None of this is decorative. La cocina no es decoracion, es trabajo.

My mother did not cook with hoja santa. She was from Jalisco and the leaf does not grow there. I learned this rice from a senora named Dona Aurora in a kitchen in Tlacotalpan, on the Papaloapan river, who served it next to a mojarra fried whole. She told me, the leaf does the work, you stay out of its way. Recetas probadas y garantizadas.